intelligent and pleasant to deal with, and not a few of the denizens
of the Marina own to some knowledge of English, or rather of American,
since several of the inhabitants are the sons of emigrants who have
settled in the cities of the United States or the Argentine, but whose
love for their island home is still so strong that they contrive to send
their children back to Capri, in order that they may retain their Italian
citizenship and be ready to serve their expected term of years in the
Army.

Past the gay-coloured shipping of the noisy Marina, past the wave-washed
halls of Tiberius' _palazzo a mare_, our boat swiftly glides over the
pellucid expanse until it reaches those vast towering cliffs of limestone
that spring almost perpendicular from the waters' edge to the plateau of
Ana-Capri, fully a thousand feet above our heads. Clumps of palmetto, of
cytizus, and of various hardy shrubs manage to sprout and to exist in the
crannies of this sheer wall of rock; and on some of the larger ledges, far
out of reach of a despoiling human hand, we see masses of the odorous
narcissus, though whence they draw their sustenance it is hard to tell. At
length we reach the entrance of the Grotto, and here, at a signal from our
boatman, we crouch down low in the body of the boat, whilst our rower,
skilfully taking advantage of a gentle surging wave, guides our craft with
his hands through an opening in the sheer wall, so low that the gunwales
grate against the rocky surface of the natural arch. At once we find
ourselves in a scene of mystical beauty, in an extravagant voluptuous
dream of loveliness, such as the Arabian Nights alone could dare to
suggest. Above us, around us, behind us, before us lies a luminous azure
atmosphere, which produces the effect of a gigantic molten sapphire, whose
secret blue fires we have actually tracked to their lurking-place in the
very heart of the gem. Against the all-pervading shimmering light our own
forms stand out distinct of an intense and velvety blackness, yet the
blades of the oars that cleave the melted sapphire of the water, the tips
of our fingers that dabble in the celestial liquid, appear as if coated
with tiny globules of silver. Our boatman's son, a picturesque lad of
fifteen or there-abouts, has, we notice, been engaged in hastily casting
off his scanty attire; for a moment his slight graceful figure is outlined
against the blue light like some antique bronze of Pompeii or Herculaneum,